class="caption">FRY OF SWAN-MUSSEL, HIGHLY MAGNIFIED.

This particular mollusc is known by the name of swan-mussel; the young fry are sent into the water in April and May. There is another kind of fresh-water mussel in rivers and streams, called the pearl-mussel, pearls being occasionally found in them. I had one of these pearls once given me by a lad, taken from a river in the Isle of Man. I took it to a jeweller, in Liverpool, who valued it at a guinea. Your uncle Arthur, to whom I gave it, had it set in gold as a pin "I wish," said May, who had listened to this part of the story with great attention, "I wish pearl-mussels would live in the canal, it would be so nice to get the pearls out of them." Very few mussels are found to contain the pearls; perhaps you might have to open many hundreds before you found a single pearl, and I should not like to cause the death of so many harmless animals for the sake of a single pearl.

FRESH-WATER MUSSEL.

"Here is another swan-mussel, and, just look, papa," said Jack, "some other shells are fastened on it." So there are; it is a lot of the curious and pretty little zebra-mussel. How prettily they are marked with zig-zag stripes of reddish brown, especially the young specimens. The name of mussel is better suited to these molluscs than to the large kinds upon which the "zebras" are often attached, because, like the salt water mussel you have often seen at New Brighton, they have the power of spinning, what is called, "a byssus"—here, you see, is the substance I mean—by which they fasten themselves to shells, or to stones, roots, and other things.

ZEBRA MUSSEL.—b. BYSSUS.

There flies one of those pretty little birds, the long-tailed titmouse; it is common enough, certainly, but I never fail to notice several upon the hedges and poplar trees of the "Duke's drive." There are several members of the titmouse family found in Great Britain; let me count them. First we have the great tit, then the little blue-tit, the long-tailed tit, the cole tit, the marsh, the crested and the bearded tit. How many does that make? Seven; but the crested tit is very uncommon, and the bearded tit does not occur in Shropshire. The other five are quite common and we shall, I dare say, be able to see all in the course of to-day's walk. The long-tailed tit, so called on account of the great length of the tail feathers, is a very active, lively little bird. Indeed, activity and liveliness belong to all the tit family. See how the little fellow flits from branch to branch, seldom remaining long on one spot. It is a very small bird, almost the smallest British bird we have; of course I am thinking of the tit's body and not taking into account its tail. The skin is remarkably tender, and thin as tissue paper. Like all the titmice, the long-tailed tit feeds on insects and their larvæ. I do not remember to have heard or seen this species tapping the bark of a tree with its beak, as the great and the blue tit are frequently in the habit of doing, but most probably they do the same. "What do they tap for, papa?" asked May. I suppose for the purpose of frightening the tiny insects, which lurk under the bark, from their hiding places, when they quickly snap them up with their sharply-pointed bills and devour them. "Is not this the tit which the people about here call a bottle tit, and which makes a very beautiful nest?" asked Willy. Yes, the nest is indeed a very pretty object, and one that you would never, I think, confuse with the nest of any other bird. The outside is formed of that white-coloured lichen, so pretty and so common, and moss, and if you were to put your finger, May, into the inside, which is full of the softest feathers, you would say it was as nice as your own muff. The nest is oval, with a hole at the side. I believe that sometimes two holes exist, but I have never seen two in a nest. The eggs are very small, and are white with a few lilac spots. As many as a dozen or more are sometimes found in a nest.

LONG-TAILED TIT.

The little blue-tit, which has just fled across our path is a very pretty active bird and common everywhere, in lanes, woods, and gardens. The blue-tit makes its nest in a wall or a hole in a tree and lays about nine or ten pretty little spotted eggs. How often I remember, when I was a boy, to have been bitten rather sharply by this little bird into whose nest I had placed my hand; I can fancy I hear the snake-like hissing which the blue-tit utters when some rude hand invades its home. Its food consists of various kinds of insects and insect larvæ, which it finds on the bark of trees and in fruit buds. I think it does much good by destroying numbers of injurious insects, though gardeners and others destroy this bird, because they say it harms the fruit buds. Look at that little sprightly fellow, how restless he is; in what curious attitudes he puts himself on yonder branch. Hark! you hear him tapping quite distinctly. Besides insects, blue-tit does not object to make a meal of dead mice or rats. Mr. St. John tells us that a blue-tomtit once took up his abode in the drawing-room, having been first attracted there by the house flies which crawl on the window. "These he was most active in searching for and catching, inserting his little bill into every corner and crevice and detecting every fly which had escaped the brush of the housemaid." He soon became more bold and came down to pick up crumbs which the children placed for him on the table, looking up into Mr. St. John's face without the least apparent fear. Boys sometimes call the little blue-tit Billy Biter, no doubt from personal experience of the sharpness of Mr. Tit's beak. The great tit which we can see under the yew tree in our garden, almost any hour of the day, is very common in the neighbourhood, and I dare say if we look well about us during our walk we shall see some to-day.

"Oh! papa," exclaimed Willy, "there are some birds on the towing-path of the canal, about sixty yards off; they seem to be breaking something with their beaks by knocking it against the ground; just look." Yes, they are thrushes, and I can tell you what they are doing and what we shall find when we come up to the spot. We shall see several broken snail shells (Helix), which the thrushes find on the grassy slopes of the canal bank, and then bring up to the path in order to get at the animals inside the shells by breaking them against the hard ground and stones. There! as I told you, you see at least a dozen broken snail shells. I am sure the thrushes do a great deal of good by destroying both snails and young slugs, and it is a pity their labours are not more appreciated than they are. Lads in the village, and great grown men from the collieries, are continually hunting for the nests, eggs, or young of thrushes, and many other useful birds, which they wantonly destroy. Now we get on the Duke's Drive, and there, on a branch of a poplar tree, I see the great tit. Look at him; he is the king of the titmice, and he seems to know it. He is a restless fellow,